The story takes place in Te Urewera an area of mostly forested, sparsely populated rugged hill country in the North Island of New Zealand. A place of many legends, stories every child knew, stories of "the taniwha—vengeful monsters that slaughtered warriors, kidnapped maidens and ate babies whole." But, they're just stories to get children to obey their parents, right?

A combination of events occur leading to a geological task force being commissioned to investigate a possible vein of gold discovered in the forest, and a military escort essentially to provide muscle, but secretly sent to investigate the disappearance of a previous military team and several civilians.

After the strong start, the story bogged down a bit and at times seemed like a bad B-movie, the kind you'd find on the syndicated Svengoolie horrorfest, but by the time we got to the second half of the book it became a pulse-pounding action-packed thrill ride. Actually, Lee Murray is quite adept at writing action sequences.

All in all, Into the Mist was an entertaining military/monster novel with a touch of mysticism.

Recommended

Into the Mist is published by Cohesion Press and is available in both e-book and paperback formats. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited you can read this book at no additional charge and if you are an Amazon Prime member you can read it for FREE through the Kindle Owners Lending Library.

Lee Murray is an award-winning writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She lives with her family in the Land of the Long White Cloud where she conjures up stories for readers of all ages from her office on the porch.